GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Tuesday it was helping Yemeni authorities with a second round of vaccination against cholera in three hard-hit districts, as cases surged across the war-ravaged country.
More than 2,500 people have died of the waterborne infection since the worst cholera outbreak in Yemen’s history began in April 2017, while nearly one million more suspected cases have been reported across the country.
Children under the age of five make up nearly a third of all suspected cases.
Yemen’s cholera epidemic had seemed to lull for a while, but WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic warned of a new escalation.
“We have been seeing the number of cholera cases increasing in Yemen since June, and this increase has been even more important in the last three weeks,” he told reporters in Geneva.
During the first eight months of the year, Yemen registered nearly 155,000 suspected cholera cases, including 197 deaths.
But in the last week of August alone, 9,425 suspected cholera cases were recorded across the country, and just a week later, the number of suspected cases recorded soared to 11,478, WHO said.
WHO has warned Yemen faces a third cholera epidemic as autumn rains have increased the risk of infection after already being hit by two major cholera outbreaks in less than two years.
In a bid to prevent a “third wave,” WHO, UNICEF and other partners began helping the government on September 30 to provide a second dose of the two-dose oral vaccination in three of the most vulnerable districts, he said.
In August, nearly 390,000 out of the more than 500,000 people targeted in Al-Hali and Al-Marawiah districts in Hodeidah governorate and in Hazm Al-Udayn in Ibb governorate received the first dose.
The three districts “were assessed to be most vulnerable to an escalation of cholera,” Jasarevic said.
He said the same population would be targeted again, with the aim to vaccinate 540,000 people. Those who did not receive a first dose in August will need to get another dose down the line.
Cholera, which causes potentially deadly diarrhea, is contracted by ingesting food or water contaminated with a bacterium carried in human faeces and spread through poor sanitation and dirty drinking water.
Left untreated, it can kill within hours.
Yemen’s brutal conflict, which since 2015 has left some 10,000 people dead and eight million on the brink of famine, has created the perfect environment for cholera to thrive.
Save The Children warned Tuesday that Hodeida, the Yemeni port city on the front line between a pro-government alliance and Iran-backed Houthi militia, had seen cases nearly triple in the past three months alone.
WHO launches second cholera vaccine drive in Yemen as cases surge
WHO launches second cholera vaccine drive in Yemen as cases surge
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2018/10/02/1329071-1390357713.jpg?itok=E4_GO5pk)
Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2025/02/18/4575262-1363367705.jpg?itok=MwXW6Hg2)
- The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups
JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/February/1347/2025/7384946099249156.jpg)
The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.
More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2025/02/19/4575281-1585538821.jpg?itok=ZcrmF4WS)
- “Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
GENEVA: More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Assad, including 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.
Assad was toppled in December in a rebel offensive, putting an end to his family’s decades-long grip on power in the Middle Eastern country and bookmarking a civil war that broke out in 2011, with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions from their homes.
The Islamist-led rebels whose offensive ousted Assad have sought to assure the international community that they have broken with their past and will respect the rights of minorities.
“Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.
“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though, otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.
At a meeting in Paris in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Turkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”
The meeting’s final statement also pledged support for Syria’s new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”
Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2025/02/18/4575271-553106083.jpg?itok=0djj5nAE)
- France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco
ALGIERS: Algeria on Tuesday denounced a visit by French Culture Minister Rachida Dati to Western Sahara, after Paris recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory, as “objectionable on multiple levels.”
The vast desert territory is a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati, who described her visit as “historic,” launched with Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid a French cultural mission in the territory’s main city, Laayoune.
An Algerian foreign ministry statement posted on social media Tuesday said the visit “reflects blatant disregard for international legality by a permanent member of the UN Security Council.”
“This visit reinforces Morocco’s fait accompli in Western Sahara, a territory where the decolonization process remains incomplete and the right to self-determination unfulfilled,” it said.
Dati’s trip, a first for a French official, “reflects the detestable image of a former colonial power in solidarity with a new one,” the statement added.
The United Nations considers Western Sahara to be a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said Rabat’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
In October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” to the Western Sahara dispute.
In November 2020, the Polisario Front said it was ending a 29-year ceasefire with Morocco after Moroccan troops were deployed to the far south of the territory to remove independence supporters blocking the only road to Mauritania.
The Polisario Front claims the route is illegal, arguing that it did not exist when the ceasefire was established in 1991.
Kurdistan region’s pipeline restart ready to go, foreign minister says
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2025/02/18/4575269-1791064704.jpg?itok=uxRIsely)
- Baghdad has periodically withheld the Kurdistan region’s share of the federal budget to try to stop it from exporting oil independently
BAGHDAD: A major pipeline connecting Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to Turkiye is ready to reopen and resume exports, the Kurdish foreign minister said on Tuesday, potentially ending a dispute between Baghdad and Irbil that led to the closure of the pipeline in 2023.
Foreign Minister Safeen Dizayee declined to say when the pipeline would reopen but said it would mark a turning point in relations between Kurdistan and Baghdad.
Iraq’s oil minister said on Monday the Iraq-Turkiye pipeline (ITP) will resume next week.
“All arrangements that were set on the table have been agreed to, with the aim to prepare for re-exports. There shouldn’t be any hiccups. The legal aspects have been met, the technical aspects are in place,” Dizayee told Reuters by phone. “The button just has to be pushed to increase production and then re-export.”
The oil flows were halted by Turkiye in March 2023 after the International Chamber of Commerce ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for unauthorized pipeline exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government between 2014 and 2018.
Negotiations to restart the pipeline have been ongoing, with US officials participating in some of the talks.
Resuming oil exports will boost the Kurdistan region’s budget, Dizayee said.
“This means Kurdistan will benefit from the federal budget and hopefully this will end the saga of (civil servants’) salaries coming or not coming, received in dribs and drabs,” Dizayee said.
Baghdad has periodically withheld the Kurdistan region’s share of the federal budget to try to stop it from exporting oil independently.
Oil producers in the Kurdistan region have had to wind down production without an export route. It will likely take some time for them to restart their oil wells and for the pipeline to use its full capacity. Before it was shut down, it transported around 450,000 barrels per day.
“They’ve invested a lot. It was a risk they took and it must pay off. They [the companies] need assurances that their investment will not be down the drain,” Dizayee said. “Compensation is something that needs to be discussed.”
An international consultancy will be brought in to do an assessment of the cost of production, expenses, cost recovery and the production sharing agreements, he said.